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Vox Day
'' No, really, folks, that's Teddy, unphotoshopped, and posing completely without irony.'' "Vox Day never pedals backward. He bikes right off the cliff as fast as possible, screaming into the air that this only goes to prove his point." — Nonny, July 20, 2015 Theodore "Vox Day" Beale, Jr. is one of the least-funny wankers in fandom. To quote Rational Wiki, he is "a science fiction author, game designer, musician, pseudo-libertarian, anti-vaxxer, racist, Christian apologist, pickup artist, stalker, and all-round fucking idiot." To which one can add misogynist and homophobe. This editor would like to offer a trigger warning for the "Beliefs and Claims" and "Insights" sections of the Rational Wiki page, which quote V.D. as admiring rapists, defending the maiming and killing of women for offending family "honor," and making various and sundry bigoted remarks. There is much more detail, in the same vein, recorded here. V.D. also founded the “Rabid Puppies,” whose takeover of the 2015 Hugo Awards (along with the "Sad Puppies") is known on FFA as the Hugopocalypse. In August 2013, V.D. announced he'd been expelled from the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). That June, he'd used a promotional SFWA Twitter feed to link to his blog, where, among other things, he'd called author N.K. Jemisin a "half-savage" (more discussion here and here) and editor Teresa Nielsen Hayden "a fat frog." Despite this being a clear breach of protocol that would have gotten him fired from any half-assed organization, V.D. and his allies have chosen to portray it as a violation of his "freedom of speech." Indeed, V.D. referred to the org as the "Seriously Fascist Women’s Association" and linked to a number of posts (that link goes to an anti-V.D. Tumblr) by SFWA members who had criticized his behavior. S/F writer John Scalzi has been feuding online with V.D. since 2005, when he exchanged words with V.D. and his sockpuppets at the blog Making Light. In February 2013, Scalzi — who has stopped referring to V.D. by name or nick and now calls him the "Racist Sexist Homophobic Dipshit" — pledged to donate $5 to various charities until the end of the year, backdating to Jan. 1, 2013, whenever V.D. mentioned or alluded to him on his blog. All the money, up to $1,000, was donated equally to RAINN, Emily’s List, the Human Rights Campaign, and the NAACP. V.D. caused a massive wank across sf/f fandom in 2014 when similarly minded friends of his nominated him for a Hugo Award just to ~make a point. FFA first started discussing this here, but this thread is much more comprehensive. They also discussed when he did it again in 2015, under the heading of the Hugopocalypse. Gentlefailers had a great deal of fun sporking V.D.'s two books, The Last Witchking and Opera Vita Aeterna, à la Neo_Prodigy's Hollowstone after a nonny acquired e-copies of them. Among the writing quirks of V.D.'s that came in for meme mocking were unsubtle homoeroticism, racist dialect, a reference to "ritual urine magic," craptastic Latin (further snarked here), asinine made-up words like "Wahrkunst," and even more asinine fantasy names like Mauragh and Dauragh (the latter of whom nonnies christened "the Explauragh"). Or Vergalvebel, which inspired this Lewis Carroll parody: : Beware the vergalvebel, son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the blacks and Jews, and shun The many-toothed ladysnatch! Another nonny replaced the names in one paragraph with meme-related names and concepts: : OAA and NFHA were surely taking the Gossers to safety in the depths of lol_meme even now. But how hard it must have been, watching them say their last farewells to their brave mods. UrSunny bit her lip, almost glad of the wound that gave cover to her glistening eyes. But the tinhats’ sacrifice had likely saved the town. Those who would like a straightforward, nonpolitical review of the many writing flaws of'' Opera Vita Aeterna ''might want to check out that by Stephanie Zvan, whose most complimentary remark was, "I do, however, have to admit that I didn’t spot any spelling errors." More meme discussions about V.D.: *In November 2014, FFA mocked V.D. for tweeting, "Seeing anti-#GamerGate people babbling about how many games they played is like hearing Nazis talk about how much they like Jewish food." *In January 2015, a nonny noted that V.D. and his fans were trying to dox and were otherwise harrassing LJ user yamamanama, who had sporked V.D.’s first book a few years before and has repeatedly criticized his behavior ever since. *In early April 2015, just as Hugopocalypse was blowing up, a nonny noted that someone had reviewed a collection of V.D.’s short stories on 50books-poc because V.D. identifies as Native American. As discussed in the comments to a Jim C. Hines blogpost, “The source for the claim on his Wikipedia entry is...a blogpost by VD. How convenient.” (The 50books-poc review has since been taken down.) *V.D. has been slashed on meme with his ideological cohort John C. Wright. *In mid-April 2015, meme noted that AlexandraErin (a stan of both Winterfox and Riley) had reviewed V.D.’s book Throne of Bones. *In May 2015, V.D. doubled down on his marriage = perpetual consent policy, arguing with an MRA who took the counter position. Nonnies are conflicted by this enemy-of-my-enemy situation: I must admit, "Godspeed, brave fedora" doesn't easily pass my lips. *After his slate (called the Rabid Puppies) crashed and burned in the 2015 Hugo awards, to the point where Hugo voters gave 'No Award' in 5 categories rather than allow the Puppies to win, V.D. did an interview with Wired where he doubled down on his racism, particularly his contempt for 'actual proper Africans.' Meme was repulsed. Also in mid-April 2015, the blog Requires Hate Record posted "Vox Day: The Mixoning," as a response to Winterfox stans who accused FFA of paying no attention to abusive white people in fandom. Category:Sad and Rabid Puppies